All posts by rstelling

Our managing editor-Elizabeth Akin Stelling and poetry editors were excited to have received Nicole Yurcaba’s Hollow Bottles and an up coming novel manuscript this past summer, after meeting her at the 2015 BIPF (Bridgewater International Poetry Festival). She is not only as one blurb describes her, into Goth, but her words reflect her love for her Ukrainian heritage and her admiration for writing itself show in each line. She is now a professor of English at the very college for whom hosts the festival every two years. You can hear her read this coming January 12-15, 2017.

Derrick Paulson has been our lead fiction editor for the past four years, and we honor his hard work by publishing his first novel. He is now teaching at the 10 grade level in high school and informed us he is bringing some of our submitted manuscripts into the class (with permission from his superiors). Derricks sense of humor is apparent in his writing of intergalactic space travel in Hot Potato: Misadventure Aboard the Good Ship Praxidike and its characters, which has made him a joy to work with the past years. He’s got a great grasp on the story lines of others books (which brought us the 2016 Will Rogers Medallion Award!) and his own stories.

Red Dashboard has published another poetry and art collaboration book from author Laura Madeline Wiseman. Late last year we published Dr Wiseman’s Leaves of Absence with her artist collaborator Sally Deskins and now we have published People Like Cats with artist Chuka Susan Chesney.

This month, Red Dashboard has published our second book by Smokey Culver and our third book by Rodney Nelson and we welcome our new authors, Kevin Casey and Geoff “Poppa Mac” Mackay. So now available for your enjoyment:

We have published a workbook for writers, “The Wheel of the Year” by Linda M. Hasselstrom, who runs writing workshops at her Windbreak House ranch in South Dakota. We have copies for sale directly through us (please e-mail editor (at) reddashboard.com) or go to the Amazon link (we are the only online seller) http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0996645004

The poem “A Little Longer Than the Moment” fromAlan Birkelbach published in our website Cowboy Poetry Press October 2014 was the 2015 receipient of the Western Writers Association “Spur Award” for Best Poem.

Here are the author Alan and our editor Elizabeth Akin Stelling with their plaques from the award ceremony in Lubbock, TX on June 27.

In his first poetry collection, Barry Gross invites us into his outré world of commentary on everything from childhood memories to adolescent sex to sustained love for family, his students, and for life at large. His sensory images compel: a woman entering a bar “…walks in / parting the smoke and conversation.” To a supermarket employee “the 90-degree day [emits] a foul / Buffet of smells…,” and on a summer-day hike the speaker and his friend seek the mysterious cabin of “a Bucks County Boo Radley.” In these poems, Gross guides our eyes to fresh ways of noticing common events, which is what good poetry does. He offers his observations of life with both deadpan wit and sincere profundity, as when he muses in one poem, noting current trends of pop culture, “I wanna be hip… / [but] Do they make skinny jeans in a 42 waist?” and near the end of another, “I am content / with the purr / and curl of / the current.” A lovely line to convey the depth of this poet. You will find yourself more than content in the skill of this debut book.